Valkyria Chronicles Oneshot: Nightingale
by itrytofight
Summary: Fifteen years ago he lost his father... as a young man he joins Gallia's finest and most prestigious military organization it has to offer. It also happens to have the largest casualty rate too.


**Author's Notes: **I haven't been writing for awhile due to events that happened in my life. Now that I have the time to write I don't have much time to flesh out huge stories, so I'm writing flash and short stories to help improve on my skills and keep with my new duties.

Any help and suggestions would be nice.

**Nightingale**

_It was raining that day, pouring._

_They watched as the local FLST, or Front Line Shock Trooper, Honor Guard took a blue flag which coverd a casket before lowering it into the perfectly dug up rectangular hole… a simple stone cross marking his grave._

_The casket and grave marker bore his father's name_

_They, being his family, father's so-called co-workers, father's NCO's and CO's, his wife, his only son, and his close friends, watched as the casket was lowered. _

_His friend beside him, eight years old and remarkably different from the rest having dark blue eyes and long hair of the same color, cried as much as the rain poured. _

_She wasn't crying because she was a Darcsen, a ethnicity blamed and persecuted for a long ago calamity that may or may not have happened and whether or not they truly were behind it all, nor was she crying because his family, save him and his mother, and a few soldiers, kept their distance from her._

_Nor was she crying because her family was abruptly taken from her a few years prior._

_She was crying because his father, the closest thing to a replacement father to her, has died in an accident right in front of the Gallian Army Reserve Base all but a month ago. At least, that's what she thought had happened._

_His mother cried twice as hard, the others solemn, heads bowed down and silent. _

_The boy was the same, sad, quiet, already knowing what most of them already knew because he was there when it happened._

_It wasn't an accident._

_Some of them were in Gallian FLST Blacks (pretty much like the dress uniforms worn by the Gallian Militia and Main Army, except they're the color black instead of blue) decorated with the appropriate ribbons, medals, and rank insignias._

_Other dress uniforms from the other services are seen too, there was a young woman with short dark red hair with the Militia dress uniform and a middle aged man with a furry mustache in his forties._

_She was a Lance Corporal, the other a Sergeant respectively._

_There were other men and women of the Militia here, even a few Main Army officers._

_Perhaps they were all friends of his father, for they kept close to the Darcsen girl next to him. The women with the dark red hair trying to comfort her with words he ignored._

_The others were in suits and dresses, none as clean and professionally looking._

_Under the pouring rain he stood there, watching as one of the Honor Guardsman held the blue flag, which was folded by three Guardsmen in a careful manner, slowly but skillfully marched to his mother._

_The Guardsman handed it to her; she received with the utmost care the giver gave to it._

_He watched, as the man performed an about face and marched back to his element whom all held bolt action rifles at the ready. _

_After marching to the position in which he could take command and executing an about face to face them, he ordered, "Element, on my command! Left face!" the element shifted direction in a quick yet smooth motion, rifles still at the ready, "Stand by…READY!"_

_The Guardsmen worked their bolts, no unnecessary movement._

"_AIM!"_

_They took aim at the sky, all their movements synchronized._

"_FIRE!"_

_The shots sounded as one, they returned the rifle to the ready position._

_They repeated the three step movement of firing into the sky three times. The girl beside him winced at every shot, her eyes red and tear stained._

_The boy, his face blank, robbed of all feeling by his father's death, watched unflinchingly; he took everything in, the loud bark of the fire, the crisp phase movements of the FST Guardsmen, the pouring rain, everything._

_He took it in._

_He was only eight._

_!!!_

_A young man now stands; he's shaven of all his golden brown hair as are the standards of an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper, or ODST, which used to be the FLST. _

_Next thing he knows he's taken into the scorching heat of summer, in the middle of the desserts of Barious , far from his home in Western Gallia, the city of Rodez, from his surrogate sister, standing at parade rest._

_Already he looked leaner just after a week in this hell, though not to their standards._

"_WHAT THE PISS IS THIS!" _

_Someone in his flight messed up again, the MTI, wearing his splitter camouflaged battle dress uniform (further separating the ODST from the blue BDU's of the Gallian Army, Militia, and Navy) complete with his "hard" hat, ran up to one of his wingman and shoved him to the ground._

"_You think this is acceptable huh!? GIVE ME FIFTY SHITHEAD!!!"_

_Before he knew what was going on the MTI was already on him, his reeking beer smelling breath nauseating him._

_The MTI noticed, "WHY'RE YOU TWITCHING YOU DISRESPECTFULL LITTLE PUNK!" _

_The young man, too, was shoved into the ground._

_!_

_It's the dead of night now, the temperature diving well below freezing, with his whole flight he is shoved into pool of ice cold, muddy water in nothing but their skivvies. He's dog paddling through-_

_!_

_He's now squatting to the ground, kicking his legs out in a sort of push up position then bringing them back them and standing back up, all the while repeating loud and proud:_

"_I have no discipline, I have no dedication-."_

_!_

_Now he's low crawling under barbed wire, his instructors screaming and roaring over the rifle fire the randomly shot into them._

_The young man ignored them, concentrating on getting through the obstacle as fast as he humanly possible-_

_!_

_He stood over a ledge about thirty feet high; he straightened his body and jumped._

_He's seventeen…_

_!!!_

_He, now wearing black armor plating that covered his mid section, legs, and arms almost like a knight of the Middle Ages of sorts ( lighter than those worn by Imperials infantry armored suits) complete with a helmet that covered the face with a visor , jumped into the blue yonder._

_The nations thought Gallia was among those not developing any kind of aircraft, much less an Air Corp, but that is far from the truth._

_If only Imperials weren't in the same boat._

_He was the last to jump, seeing all those in his flight before him falling closer and closer to the desolate farmlands below._

_Taking the proper body position, bent slight forward, feet and knees together and locked to the rear, and counting to four, he pulls the cord that releases his chute that slowed his descent to the ground below…_

_His body hit the ground far faster than he expected, his flight, if they were indeed his flight since other flights were dropped into this hell with him, were already up and fighting in what looked to be a muddied, cratered, no-man's land._

_Flashes of gunfire can be seen ahead, a trench line. He and the other paratroopers advanced, weapons drawn and firing on the trench line ahead of them._

_SMGs with silencers, Assault Rifles equipped with scopes, Rifle sized Light Machine Guns, Sniper Rifles that can easily shoot a target 1400 meters away, RPGs that can produce the same results as a lancer rocket without the unneeded weight and length, the ODST had the latest in weaponry._

_The bullets shot at them; tracers flying pass them, the bullets deflected off their armor, though some around him fell still. Artillery fell, adding more desolation and destruction to the surrounding environment, taking more lives with them._

_Planes in the air, rotor driven bi-planes strafed them, their .50 Caliber bullets punching through what seemed impenetrable. Their under wing pylons that held rocket launcher pods added to the fray, the resulting explosions scattered them._

_They still kept going, it's not like they could go back._

_Someone in front of him jerked his head back and fell. He fired all the more and advanced with the rest of his brethren until an explosion threw him._

_The next thing he knew he was lying in a puddle of mud, almost robbed of breath and soaked to the skin. They arose from the horizon, Imperial soldiers, their upper bodies armored in rusting steel plating like knights, fired their weapons at all directions to stem the tide if possible._

_He __found three aimed at him._

_From the muddy water he snatched the SMG lying at his side and emptied the rest of his mag into the group._

_As being caught off guard by him wasn't enough, one of their planes just so happened to choose this particular group to crash into and kill them in all but a second, the fact that it was covered in scorching flame may have had something to do with it._

_In the skies above, watching form the puddle, he saw the silhouette of three planes fly overhead, nothing like what attacked them. Far faster than those bi planes that attacked them earlier, they engaged enemy planes probably of the same caliber. _

_A moment after a blue colored tank rolled by, larger than the other tanks Gallia's inventory held and with a much larger gun, followed by blue uniformed soldiers. They're men and women, old and young, within this group; he could tell because they had no helmets._

_It's the Gallian Militia._

_Just out of his view a gloved hand is extended to him. _

_Looking, he saw a girl from his past, the same silky dark hair now dirtied with grime and cut short, the same dark blue eyes, now much older, in Militia BDUs, and decked in assortments of tools and ammunition._

_On her left shoulder, a yellowish-gold badge with a unicorn shaped number 7._

_He took her hand…_

_!!!_

They stood in silence, in the dead of night; a pile of dirt and rock stood before them illuminated by the various fires dotting the ruined buildings and landscape. Marking it is a rifle, an old FLST flag, and the ODST's signature helmet.

"They" included members of the ODST, their helmets off, and members of the Militia, Operation Flight Alpha Team 2 and Squad 7 to be precise. As of late they've been running into each other all over the country and had helped each other on more than one occasion.

So they were close.

With no chaplain present he took on the role, saying a prayer and how the dead man lived and fought… and how he died. He was the one who laid out the flag over the pile of gravel after helping to make it.

With the funeral over with, the Darcsen girl from his past watched, as did everyone else, as he carefully folded the old FST flag that had covered her surrogate father's casket, now torn, dirty, and worn, and stuffed it inside his chest armor with the utmost care.

A few that knew them were present too, the women, now into her thirties, tried to give him a few words of comfort as she would when she and he hit hard times. The old man, now in his sixties, was there too, merely placing his hand on her shoulders. Almost like how an aunt and grandpa would.

The young man knew him, the Darcsen girl knew him, OFA Team 2 and Squad 7 knew him… him being the victim of a stray bullet… and together they all stood in silence.

A gunshot, a frag going off, the steady drum beat of the machine guns, suddenly broke that silence.

OFA Team 2 and Squad 7 looked up at each other; he and she looked at one another. No words were exchanged for none needed to be said.

In a quick motion the ODST donned their helmets, held their weapons at the ready, and ran to meet the fighting. Squad 7 of the militia did the same, without the helmets of course. Their two tanks rumbling to life.

As they ran toward the sound of fighting, in the cold of night, the Darcsen girl ran to his side…

!!!!

**We are the ODST of Gallia**

!

!

!

!

_Once there was a Nightingale…_

_!_

_!_

_!_

Author's Summary of what could have been:

_Nightingale_ is about a paratrooper in Gallia's Air Force, known as an ODST in this AU, who loses his entire flight on the shores of Marberry when their glider makes a hard landing; he ends up in a coma for the next four days with Nadine, his childhood friend, at his bedside for three of them.

When he finally wakes Avan Hardence, a Cadet from the Lanseal Military Academy and a close friend, gives him a lowdown of what happened to him, his unit, and Squad 7 (and Isara) as well as future events planned by the higher ups.

Then an ODST colonel walks in, dismisses Avan and gives the main character new orders. He is assigned to Squad 7 and is to locate and advise them, the reason being that Intel says that the Imperials are sending Ithilian Rangers, the Imperial alternative to Gallia's ODST, to eliminate them.

Already the core strength, moral-wise, of the Gallian Military… the higher ups is not having that.

From the shores of Marberry to his home town of Rodez, the main character pursues Squad 7, is forced into side missions for a variety of services, meets up with wounded 7's (some of whom join him), and runs into evidence of where Squad 7 are heading, what they were doing (physical evidence as well as word of mouth), as well as their casualties.

All the while running after them, he finds evidence that may suggest the Rangers are already stalking them.

All this has a psychological effect on him, forcing him through flashbacks with characters you know and love like Nadine, Catherine, Theold, Rosie, Coby, Lynn, Karl, and other 7's as well as OC characters like OFA Team 2 and his family.

_Nightingale_ would have basically been a AU _Valkyria Chronicles_ and VC2 crossover with elements of _Halo 3: ODST_, _Lord of the Rings _(aka _Ithilian Rangers_), and _Medal of Honor: Frontline_.

It's also inspired a bit by DC20's fanfic: _Valkyria Chronicles: Flashpoint_ and _Halo 3: ODST_'s live action trailer (if you haven't already guessed it yet).

Oh yeah, for couples: Karl and Lynn, Nadine and OC, Juno and Welkin, Faldio and Alicia, Welkin and Alicia, Dead OC and Catherine, and that's it for now.

Since I'm not going to make this a chapter story… anyone want to take it up?

Anyone?


End file.
